Chris Whitaker - We Begin at the End

She stood, dropped her bag and stared at Mary Lou. And then she walked toward her. Girls moved, Emma and Kelly and Alison Myers, they parted for her because they’d heard the stories.

“You want to tell me what’s so funny?”

Boys came over and fanned out around them.

Mary Lou did not back off, just carried that same smirk. “You stink of piss.”

“What?”

“Your bed. It was you last night. I saw my mother washing the sheet from your bed. You pissed yourself like some retard.”

Duchess heard the bell ring.

No one moved.

“I did.”

There were murmurs, laughter and a couple of shouts she couldn’t make out.

“You admit it?” Mary Lou said.

“Sure.”

“See. I told you it wasn’t bullshit,” she said to Kelly. Then she turned and the group began to move.

“But you know why I did it?”

They stopped, heads turned.

Mary Lou watched her, uncertain of what was coming but tensing up, ready.

“So your father wouldn’t touch me.”

Stone silence.

“Liar,” Mary Lou said.

Kelly and Emma inched away.

“You fucking liar.” She screamed then ran at Duchess.

Mary Lou was used to shoving matches, maybe some hair pulling, nothing more than that. She did not count on meeting an outlaw in the schoolyard.

Duchess dropped her with one savage punch.

Mary Lou crumpled, her tooth in the grass, the other kids hollering as blood spilled from her mouth.

Duchess stood still and calm, watching her prey, kind of hoping she’d get up and they’d go again.

When it was done, when the principal and two teachers ran out and took a look at Mary Lou, beaten bloody, tooth missing, the new girl standing over her and smiling, they hauled her inside and called the Prices and Shelly.

Duchess sat alone waiting, wishing Hal would walk down the hallway and straighten out her mess. Out the window she watched Montana sky and wondered about Walk and the Cape, what kind of sky they saw that morning when everything changed once again.

Mrs. Price arrived crying, her husband’s arm around her.

“No more, we’re not doing this anymore,” she said between breaths, glaring at Duchess like she wanted the girl dead.

Mr. Price glared too, so Duchess flipped him off.

Shelly got there and hugged her. Duchess stood still and did not hug her back.

The adults convened in the principal’s office, gold plaque on a door so heavy Duchess could make out nothing more than the odd raised voice. Mrs. Price going off, out of my house, not one more night, safety of my own children.

Duchess was called in once the Prices stepped out, looking away as they passed her, like she did not live beneath their roof.

Shelly asked her about what she said, about Mr. Price. She told the truth. She said it to shut Mary Lou up. Shelly backed her as best she could, the losing horse but still she threw support her way.

The principal was aghast, grave allegations, no place for violence in their school, she would not be welcome back.

Duchess flipped him off for good measure.

“You alright?” Shelly said, as they walked from the school.

“I’m alive.” Duchess did not like leaving Robin there.

She climbed into Shelly’s car and sat silent as they drove to the Price house.

Mrs. Price stood in their kitchen, on guard. Mr. Price had run Mary Lou to the emergency room to be checked over and see about her tooth. Threats were made, legal and otherwise. Duchess was ushered up to the attic to pack their belongings. It did not take long. Her case had been ready since the day they arrived.

She left the house without saying another word to Mrs. Price, who stood on the step, dabbing at her eyes.

Shelly drove in silence, back to the office, where she worked the phone madly while Duchess sat on an old wooden chair and watched hours pass by.

At three Shelly headed out and left Duchess under the watch of a couple of older ladies who smiled her way every ten minutes.

Shelly returned with Robin. He’d been crying.

At five they got a place. Shelly spoke without emotion, tired and beaten by a hundred other files, other cases, other lives just as lost.

“It’s a group home,” she said.

36

THE HOUSE WAS GRAND, GREEK revival, Doric columns so tall Duchess felt small beside them.

An acre of tended grass ran to quaking aspen bold green against spring sky. Duchess sat on a bench with Robin while planes wrote tracks into the sky. Shelly was inside, meeting with a large black lady named Claudette, and she seemed to run whatever it was that needed running. Youth Guidance Home.

Robin was quiet, resigned as they arrived at the house but nervous enough to keep hold of his sister’s hand.

“I’m sorry.” She said it with such sadness in her voice that he leaned his head on her shoulder for a moment.

There were other kids and they played a game of something complex, a ball and three hoops and a bat. Duchess watched for twenty minutes and couldn’t figure the rules. She knew the look in their eyes though, kids like her, the damned. They didn’t offer smiles or nods, just went about their day like it would be a miracle if they made it through. There was a lady outside on the street, holding on to a girl no bigger than Robin and staring at the house. She had the wiry strung-out look of a user.

A half hour later they ate together in a dining room that smelled of a hundred dinners choked down by a hundred kids. Robin pushed his food around.

There was a communal lounge, a TV in the corner running a movie. A couple of girls sat on a brown sofa and watched, eating popcorn but mostly ignoring each other.

In the other corner was a chest spilling with toys, ranging from stacking cubes to puzzles.

“Go play.”

Robin walked over, head down, and picked up a storybook far too young for him. He sat cross-legged on the floor, turning the page now and then, miles away from his sister and that room.

In the hallway she found Shelly.

“I know what I did. I know I fucked up too bad …”

Shelly went to rub her arm but Duchess stepped back. “What will happen now?”

“I don’t—”

“Just say, Shelly. Just tell me what will happen to me and my brother.”

“This home is for girls.”

Duchess shook her head.

Shelly raised a calming hand. “Claudette will let you stay with Robin, on account of his age.”

Duchess breathed again. “What about Peter and Lucy?”

Shelly swallowed, looked away, at Robin, at anywhere but Duchess.

“Did you tell them?”

“I had to. Peter … he’s a doctor. And Lucy, at the school. They, what you said about Mr. Price. They can’t risk the—”

“I get it.”

“We’ll keep looking. We just need to find the right fit.”

“I don’t fit anywhere.”

The look in Shelly’s eyes almost broke her.

Robin came out, they walked along the hallway and up the stairs.

They passed bedrooms with kids inside, a girl reading a story aloud and her sister listening intently. The walls were colored, pastel shades of pink and yellow. Pictures tacked to corkboards, family shots of fallen families.

Their room had white walls and the corkboard was bare, their time there unwritten. Two beds Duchess would later push together, the covers striped with rainbow colors. An empty closet and chest, a wicker basket for their washing. The carpet was squares that fit together like puzzle pieces, easy to lift out if they got stained.

“You want me to help you unpack?” Shelly said.

“I got it.”

Robin stood in the center of the room, looked up at the window then pulled the drapes to cut falling light. He switched on the lamp and then climbed on the bed and curled away from them.